Article from the Deseret News: Notable Church milestone anniversaries happening in 2017

As a self-proclaimed Church history nerd who prides myself on knowing or being able to learn everything I can regarding that subject, I was elated to check KSL's website today and to find there a link to an article published by the Deseret News regarding the significant milestone anniversaries the Church will celebrate at some point this year. FWIW, I share a link to that article. Click here to read more on that. Enjoy! Feedback of any kind continues to be welcome and appreciated. It looks like this will be a very commemorative year just in terms of those milestone anniversaries, let alone in view of any temple or Church growth milestones that might also be observed. As always, thanks so much for your readership and support.

Funeral Services Announced for Elders Glenn L. Rudd and Bruce D. Porter

Hello. This is a post I have been promising for the last several hours. I finally got a chance to get to doing it now. As many of you know, the Church recently lost two spiritually giant leaders, both very well known. I have kept an eye out for future developments in this regard, and today the funeral services were announced for both.

Elder Glen L. Rudd, whose greatness in charitable efforts earned him the nickname "Mr. Welfare", passed away on Friday December 30 at the ripe old age of 98, making him one of the oldest emeritus General Authority to pass away.  Though small in stature, he was large of heart. Click here to read the remarkable tribute to this man's monumental life. As he only served as an active general authority for five years, he had just one opportunity to address us in General Conference. His talk can be found here. His funeral will be later today (January 4).

In the meantime, Elder Bruce D. Porter, who has been a general authority for the better part of my 30 years, became the second actively-serving General Authority to pass away in 2016 when he died from complications of a pulmonary infection at the relatively young age of 64. Click here to read more of his life and his passing. Elder Porter only spoke four times in General Conference, but he gave landmark addresses every time. Click here to review any or all of those. Having read them before, I can readily attest to how good they are. Elder Porter had been serving as president of the Church's Europe East Area when (as I assume, though it hasn't been explicitly stated) he was released in early December in view of his failing health before succumbing to the pulmonary infection that would take him from us far too quickly. He died just the day before Elder Rudd. Elder Porter's funeral services will take place tomorrow (January 5). And it is no doubt out of respect and deference to his memory that no change has been officially announced for the Europe East Area Presidency, even though such changes have reportedly already happened. However, I do anticipate that we may hear about that Area Presidency change, whatever it involves, before the end of this week.

Both funerals will no doubt be well attended. And it is almost certain that a representative from the leading brethren of the Church will be present at both services. Who that might be remains to be seen. While I have always personally mourned the passing of such good leaders, the only funeral I have ever personally attended for a prominent Church leader was that for Elder C. Max Caldwell, who served as a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy and was a close personal friend who graciously and without hesitation accepted my request that he officiate at my wedding ceremony. When I went to Elder Caldwell's funeral, I was fully anticipating a current General Authority being in attendance to "represent the brethren." But the one doing so was another close personal friend from my temple service who had served with Elder Caldwell in the Second Quorum of the Seventy and had been president of the Mount Timpanogos Temple during the time that Elder Caldwell and I were serving there. His name was L. Edward Brown.

Therefore, my personal experience is a witness and reminder to me that the apostles will send anyone they feel inclined to send to represent them at these upcoming services. It will more than likely be someone that is somehow connected to Elder Porter and Elder Rudd personally. And it could be any former or current General Authority that they feel would best represent them. Nothing would surprise me at this point.

Thanks for wading through this. Feel free to comment if you feel so inclined. May God bless the memories of these valiant servants of the Lord.

Refining yet again my predictions for when future temple-related events may be announced and scheduled

Recent events and announcements have led me to revise what I feel will be the most likely timeline prevailing in regards to when future temple-related events will be announced and scheduled. Based on information found on Rick Satterfield’s excellent LDS Church Temples website, I have taken yet another look at the progress that has been made and have felt to revisit my projections as follows”

(Edits to the rest of this post became necessary on 1/5/17 in light of new information I received)

Late breaking news posted on the LDS Church Temples website just today (the 5th) indicates that the Arequipa Peru temple has jumped to the top spot in terms of near future imminent groundbreakings and an announcement of such an event is anticipated to happen very shortly. Whether or not that will coincide in any way with the site announcement and announced groundbreaking ceremony for the temple in Harare Zimbabwe is anyone's guess. I welcome thoughts about that very subject.

In light of the new information, I feel safe in predicting that we will very shortly have an announcement of the groundbreaking for the Arequipa Peru temple,whether that is before or coinciding with the Harare site announcement and groundbreaking. Both could be announced before January 15th. The actual groundbreakings for both temples may take place within the same period of time, which has historically been 4-6 weeks following the announcements of such events. 

At this point, the two seem to be interchangeable in terms of when things might get started. I could definitely see both taking place before General Conference. I will try to be conservative in this estimate and say we may see these events happen by late February or early March. Given the mere 2 1/2 weeks we saw between the announcement of the groundbreaking for the temple in Winnipeg, which is, to the best of my knowledge, the shortest such period in Church history in which such events have occurred, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of either groundbreaking ceremony happening much sooner than that. 

But the general rule I have observed regarding the prevailing timetables in such events seems to be roughly between 4-6 weeks. I welcome feedback on this timetable from those who may feel inclined to give it.

Speaking of Harare, if current plans hold, the temple there may become the first such edifice outside the United States which will have a groundbreaking within less than a year after the temple announcement. If its construction commences at that time, for the very first time in Church history, three temples will simultaneously be undergoing construction on the African continent. 

Stay tuned for news of that site announcement and groundbreaking information whenever it happens. In the coming days, we will hear more about such events for Harare and for Arequipa, I am reasonably sure. One thing of which I am 100% certain: You can depend upon hearing from me on what happens there as soon as I can let you know after I hear about it.

And of course, in terms of imminent temple events, we cannot forget the already-scheduled dedication in Paris France on May 20 and the rededication on June 4 for the Idaho Falls Idaho Temple. That rededication is anticipated to precede the dedication of Idaho’s next temple in Meridian within a very short time later.

Speaking of the Meridian Idaho temple, no notable progress has been made on the construction there since my last post about the imminent scheduling of future events.  However, I still feel strongly regarding my prediction that a dedication date for the Meridian Idaho Temple is likely to be announced within the next 3 or 4 months, and the dedication itself will likely happen in early August.

In Cedar City, no major progress has been reported since I last ventured my predictions about a completion date there. However, there is still reason to believe that the dedication could be announced within the next six months, if not sooner, and might take place in late August or early September.

As I stated last time, Tucson is so close to Cedar City’s level of completion that they are neck-and-neck in terms of a future completion date. With no notable progress made since I last posted something like this, it wouldn’t be surprising to me to see the Tucson and Cedar City dedications scheduled for around the same time, with an announcement of these events within 6 months and the actual events in late August or early September.

The Jordan River temple has not had any reported progress lately either. However, with that being said. I am still holding out hope that the renovation could be completed around August, with the rededication being announced about a month later and scheduled for either late November or early December 2017. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if things speed up somehow and that rededication takes place around the events of the Tucson and Cedar City temples. Stay tuned for more on that as I learn of it.

In spite of any reassurance to the contrary, I am of the opinion that the delays we have seen in Rome will prevent it from being completed before the Kinshasa temple. Right now the temple interior work is still in progress in Rome. I wouldn’t be surprised if a dedication for Kinshasa was announced during the spring of 2018, with the actual dedication to follow, perhaps sometime in May or June. In Kinshasa right now, the exterior walls are being built.

Meanwhile, mammoth progress has been reported in the renovation of the Frankfurt Germany Temple of late, but nothing new since my last update. However, I feel sure that the renovation of Germany’s other temple will be completed within the same timeframe as that of the Kinshasa dedication. Rome might be the next one completed, but a dedication might not take place until August or September, after the annual July recess for General Authorities. That estimation is me speaking optimistically based on my observation of the completion progress in Rome.

Concepcion, where building wrap has been attached to the exterior walls, and where landscaping structures are being added, will likely have a dedication announcement within the first half of 2018, with the dedication itself to follow sometime in either August or September, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if it was to even precede Rome in that milestone.

The temple in Durban South Africa has not progressed much lately either. Even though I always anticipated delays in that construction in view of my mother’s report of the work ethic that prevails in South Africa (she happens to be a South African native with no small familiarity on this point), I feel confident that the temple will be completed within a similar time frame to that which is almost certain for Concepcion. I am therefore predicting that the announcement for the dedication will be made around the same time as that for Concepcion and Rome, within the first half of 2018, with the dedication actually scheduled for August or September as well.

In Winnipeg, where the temple is being built, as I have before mentioned, to initially serve just the one stake there, no progress has been reported as of yet above and beyond the groundbreaking. But given the projected construction window of 20 months, the completion month will likely be somewhere around August 2018. It appears that temple dedication announcements precede actual events by a few months. I would therefore expect and am predicting that the Winnipeg dedication will take place in either late November or else early December 2018. It wouldn’t surprise me if a similar timeline held true for the temple in Barranquilla Colombia, which is further along in terms of construction (walls are currently being poured for the steeple base), but will be a much larger edifice.

In the meantime, for the first time in doing such predictions, I feel bold enough to project completion dates for the two temples anticipated to be completed sometime around 2019. The temple in Fortaleza Brazil had a five year span between the groundbreaking and the actual commencement of construction. However, it is progressing rapidly. Recent reports indicate that the second floor exterior walls have now been poured. This makes it increasingly more likely that construction will be completed there within the early months of 2019, with the actual dedication taking place in either April or perhaps possibly May. This is great to think about. Construction took forever to get started, and now it is speedily progressing at an astonishing rate.

The Lisbon Portugal temple was the last temple to have a groundbreaking in 2015. Right now, excavation is well underway for the temple itself and the adjacent utility building. In the meantime, structural framing has begun on the on-site meetinghouse. It is amazing to see how all that has happened in such a short time. Based on that, a similar time frame may be very likely to prevail as that which I have proposed above for the Fortaleza temple. It would not surprise me if these two traded spots a couple of times in terms of future completion. But right now, it seems safe to say that.

Any other temples that may be completed in 2019 have not yet had a groundbreaking. Based on my observations here, the Church is well on track to add 4 new operating temples by the end of 2017, and six more in 2018. Two temples may be rededicated this year, with the only other one currently undergoing renovation on track to be completed next year. If this happens, it would almost completely reduce and eliminate any semblance of a backlog in temple progress, and makes it extraordinarily more likely that many more temples could be announced within the next two years. The exact number of those announcements remains to be seen, though I have given my feelings on what I feel are the most likely and most imminent picks.

Future groundbreakings may be more unpredictable to anticipate than I originally thought. I look at the groundbreaking in Winnipeg, and it happened much faster than usual. Zimbabwe, for the reasons outlined above, will be very historic in terms of what it means for the future of the Church in Africa.

After the groundbreakings in Peru and Zimbabwe, since I have followed temple developments very closely lately, I see the next groundbreaking taking place for the first Haitian temple in Port-au-Prince. I have no reason to back this up. It’s just how I feel, and we could have the site announcement and the groundbreaking by spring of next year. This seems especially likely given the delays I have noted in the construction beginning in Rio de Janeiro Brazil.

A groundbreaking for Bangkok could happen by the end of 2017 or the beginning of 2018.  For the temple in Rio, I could see any remaining delays being cleared up and a groundbreaking being announced and taking place within the first six months of next year. I wouldn't rule out having that happen sooner, but that's what I feel may happen based on my observations. The same timetable may prevail for the Abidjan temple. Who knows how long the currently reported delays in Urdaneta might last. I might venture to say that the remaining temples (the three others announced last year) might well have a groundbreaking by or before 2019. Since things are so very unpredictable and up in the air on this point, anyone’s thoughts on this are probably more informed than mine may be.

And I’m sure that, given the nature and unpredictability of temple announcements in terms of potential locations and actual construction commencement may be such that, by the time any or all of these events happen, more temples may be announced and have construction started. At this point, I cannot rule anything out in these terms.

Thanks, as always, for taking time to read and (if you feel so inclined) respond to this post. It is only thanks to your continued thoughtful feedback that I am able to fine-tune my predictions. And I will always try to keep an eye on temple-related progress and will do my best to report that news and any updates just as soon as I become aware of them, though obviously my ability to do so will depend entirely on how soon I can hear of such developments. Thanks again.